Sunday, February 15, 2009

Mauricio Alejo @ Ramis Barquet, NYC.


The new show of  photographer Mauricio Alejo

The Limits of Fiction
Feb 19 - March 21
Ramis Barquet, 532 W 24th St.
New York, NY 10011


Reception: Thursday, February 19th from 6–8 PM

Ramis Barquet is pleased to announce The Limits of Fiction, an interdisciplinary exhibition by artist, Mauricio Alejo.

In his past exhibitions at Ramis Barquet, Alejo examined the vulnerability of his subjects with the certainty that everything in life is hopelessly bound to collapse. Throughout his career, Alejo has attempted to bridge the gap between two different spaces that are also one and the same: the space that he inhabits and the one that inhabits him.

The Limits of Fiction is an exhibition made out of hard, physical facts. Some of them take the form of installations, while others are documented by photographs or videos. The focus of the exhibition is centered on how the installations, photos and videos create very specific experiences of space and an awareness of the immaterial such as air or transpiration.

Within the exhibition, the gallery space not only houses the installations, but rather, it takes part in some of them, such as Tunnel and Breathing. Tunnel is an arrangement of mirrors that allows the viewer to see the sky from the farthest point inside the gallery. Breathing consists of a group of plastic bags connected to clear tubes reaching outside of the gallery that subtly inflate and deflate as air comes in and out of the gallery.

The aimless, childlike, physics experiments played out both in the gallery and in the photographs and videos, happen within the thin boundary where metaphor and literality overlap. The title given to each of these experiments could be interpreted as either a revelation or a tautology. In the end, these pieces work individually and collectively because they reside in a place where reality only makes sense in relation to fiction, and fiction only works because it has the consistency of reality.

Mauricio Alejo was born in Mexico City in 1969. He lives and works in New York City. Since 1990, Alejo’s work has been exhibited internationally. In 2000., he received the Fulbright García Robles scholarship to attend New York University. Most recently, he has participated in group exhibitions in Germany and Singapore. Space That Is Time shown at Galeria OMR in Mexico City in 2007 was his most recent solo exhibition.

For more information or images contact Amanda Alvarez at amanda@ramisbarquet.com.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10-6 PM.

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